On Feb 13, 2019, Ripple officially announced the release of XRP Ledger version 1.2.0.

The newest version of the ‘decentralized’ peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptographic ledger for XRP storage will boast the automatic detection of censorship attempts in addition to the automatic issuance of warnings. Explains the official announcement:

One of the major benefits of decentralized blockchain technologies, such as the XRP Ledger, is censorship resistance. Already highly resistant to censorship attempts, with the release of version 1.2.0 of the XRP Ledger, servers now have the ability to automatically detect transaction censorship attempts and issue warnings of increasing severity for transactions that a server believes should have been included in a closed ledger after several rounds of consensus.

XRP Ledger version 1.2.0 will also implement the MultisignReverse Amendment. This will lower the reserve requirement for signer lists for Multisign.

Additionally, the code has seen “incremental improvements” for the handling of offers in the decentralized exchange.

Those running an XRP Ledger server are recommended to upgrade to version 1.2.0 by Feb 27, 2019. Failure to do so will result in the server becoming “amendment blocked.” According to the announcement, these blocked servers:

Cannot determine the validity of a ledger;Cannot submit or process transactions;Cannot participate in the consensus process;Cannot vote on future amendments; andCould rely on potentially invalid data.

Stiff Competition

Ripple is currently experiencing a healthy dose of FUD following the announcement from JPMorgan Chase that the major financial institution would be launching its own in-house cryptocurrency, JPM Coin.

The announcement from JPMorgan has led many to view Ripple’s XRP as merely a test-case for major banks to create their own blockchain-based solutions — something Bitcoinist suggested in March 2018 when we wrote:

So even though global networks like SWIFT may be technologically inferior to RippleNet, for example, the XRP token would simply not be needed because supranational institutions and governments certainly will —and some already are — issue their own tokens to maintain full control over their monetary systems.

What do you think about the update to XRP Ledger? Has JPMorgan single-handedly rendered XRP obsolete? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!